NWTF, Pheasants Forever Help Expand Public Hunting Access in the Dakotas

Through the partnership, the South Dakota NWTF State Chapter contributed $5,000 and the North Dakota NWTF State Chapter contributed $8,000 this year to Pheasants Forever’s Public Access to Habitat program, commonly known as PATH. Pheasants Forever debuted its PATH program in South Dakota in 2023 and expanded to include North Dakota in 2025. Other states with PATH programs include Michigan, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The combined investment opened 10,515 acres of new public access within the Dakotas. Anyone wanting to hunt on these publicly accessible parcels can do so during any legal, active hunting season in the state. Hunters can find maps of huntable areas on each respective state game agency's website. In addition to the acres enrolled in 2026, the South Dakota NWTF State Chapter has allocated another $10,000 for the program in 2027. Based on the cost of agreements completed through the previous year’s project, the funding could potentially help make as many as 8,000 new acres available to hunters in South Dakota.

“It's always such a great opportunity to work with other organizations like Pheasants Forever on any project, but when we can leverage dollars to create more public access, it becomes even more fulfilling for the NWTF mission and our membership,” said Dr. Don Massa, South Dakota NWTF State Chapter president.

PATH provides one-time incentive payments to landowners who agree to open qualifying private property to public hunting. Acres enrolled in the program must meet certain habitat criteria to be eligible. The idea is to provide not just additional access acres, but additional access to acres that have a quality habitat component or that will be restored to a beneficial habitat through the program. The payments supplement those offered through the North Dakota Private Land Open to Sportsmen (PLOTS) program and South Dakota’s Walk-In Access (WIA) program, making public-access agreements more appealing to participating landowners.

The partnerships have already demonstrated how a relatively small conservation investment can create significant public benefits.

Through the previous South Dakota PATH project, NWTF contributions helped open 5,984 acres of new public access. The North Dakota contributions helped open 4,531 acres.

The new investment builds on that success while advancing one of the NWTF’s central hunting heritage priorities: ensuring hunters have places to pursue wild game.

Although much of South Dakota’s wildlife habitat is privately owned, programs such as PATH and Walk-In Areas allow landowners to voluntarily share that habitat with the public. In some cases, an enrolled property can also provide a route to otherwise landlocked public lands managed by agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management or the South Dakota Office of School and Public Lands.

The benefits extend beyond the hunters who use the property. Access payments can encourage landowners to retain grasslands and other wildlife habitat, maintain land enrolled in conservation programs and use management practices that benefit wild turkeys, upland game birds and other game and non-game species.

By combining NWTF dollars, Pheasants Forever funding and voluntary landowner agreements through the state game agencies, the partnership will turn conservation support into something hunters can experience directly: more gates opened, more habitat accessible and more room to continue hunting traditions in the Dakotas.